Mayor King’s wife and mother admit to 5th degree felony election falsification

East Cleveland's mayor launched a major battle to prove he lived in filth with his mentally ill, hoarder, drug dealing brother instead of his weekend wife

CLEVELAND, OH – When East Cleveland Mayor Brandon L. King realized the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections (BOE) had bought his lie of residing at 1735 Elsinore Street, he selfishly left the room with the two lawyers who were supposed to also represent his mother, wife and two brothers.  Attorneys James Alexander and Charles Tyler.  Comments were made that King was throwing his 82-year-old mother under the bus when he left her to fend for herself.

King’s mother, Norma, and brothers, Cecil, Jr. and Norman, did not fare as well as Brandon did.  Neither did King’s wife, Cleveland Clinic registered nurse practitioner Stephanie Marie McCarroll-King.  The voter registrations of the mayor’s mother and two brothers were unanimously cancelled by the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections after their federal and state felony voting fraud crimes were exposed.  King’s wife abruptly changed her voting address the week before the May 23, 2023 BOE hearing.  She admitted to never residing in East Cleveland; and to being guided to 1735 Elsinore as an address King family members used for business purposes.  Cecil and Norman were no-shows.

Mayor Brandon L. King was adamant that he resided 4-nights weekly at 1735 Elsinore Street with his mentally ill, drug trafficking, hoarder brother, Sheldon King, and his brother’s girlfriend. His original story was that he was among 7 adults living in the uninhabitable property until his wife and mother admitted they weren’t living in filth with Brandon and Sheldon; and neither were brothers Cecil and Norman. East Cleveland’s mayor never explained how he entered and left the front door on March 17, 2023. He never produced an electric, gas or water bill for 1735 Elsinore Street.

Altogether four of the seven King family adults registered to vote at 1735 Elsinore Street were stricken from the records as East Cleveland voters.  It was a lie, according to King’s mother, that they all lived together in what the mayor’s attorneys described as a “family home” and a “dual residence.” When Brandon King obtained the signatures of his two brothers, Cecil and Norman, on the recall petitions he circulated to remove Vice President of Council Patricia Blochowiak, he knew his siblings did not reside with him and his brother Sheldon at 1735 Elsinore Street.  They did not appear before the BOE to answer why their signatures on voter registration records and petitions appear remarkably similar to Brandon’s.

The story Mayor King sold the elections board is that he prefers to live in a 5-bedroom, 1-bathroom illegal dumpsite with his mentally ill, drug dealing, hoarder brother, Sheldon and his brother’s girlfriend, Raven Lewis.  King was emphatic that he did not live at 20230 Glen Russ Lane in Euclid – a quiet cul de sac near Euclid Creek Park – with the professional registered nurse practitioner wife he married on February 22, 2022.

The leg-rocking mayor wouldn’t budge off his story that he lived 4-days a week surrounded by filth in the nastiest residence on Elsinore Street; and that he spent Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights sleeping with his weekend wife at 20230 Glen Russ Lane in Euclid.  For 156 nights a year, 22.28 weeks annually, Mayor King described himself as a dual resident of Euclid, Ohio with his weekend wife.

The rear door and porch of 1735 Elsinore Street is barricaded with debris that made it impossible for Mayor Brandon L. King to enter and exit on March 20, 2023.  This was three days before East Cleveland housing inspector Melran Leach, Jr. inspected Mayor King’s residence and cited him for illegal dumping and excessive rubbish on March 23, 2023.  Mayor King’s attorney, Charles Tyler, claimed no one could see if his client entered and exited 1735 Elsinore Street through the barricaded rear door.  King would have to be the size of the rodents he’s breeding in the trash surrounding his residence.

The problem with King’s “dual resident” claim is the term doesn’t exist in Section 112(A) of East Cleveland’s Charter; or in Section 3.15 of the Ohio Revised Code.  King’s request to be declared a dual resident by the Court of Common Pleas was also rejected.  Pursuant to Section 112(A) of East Cleveland’s Charter, “During his or her term, the Mayor shall remain a resident and qualified elector of the city and shall carry out his duties on a full-time basis.”

By his own admission Mayor King has not remained a resident of 1735 Elsinore Street.  He’s based his residency on his “intent to return” to the uninhabitable illegal dump and rubbish site where he and four other King family members were registered to vote but did not reside.  His argument was based solely on standards established for voters.  There is no “intent to return” provision in the Charter’s instructions for King to “remain a resident” of East Cleveland as an elected mayor.

According to his wife, King intends to return to a vacant lot on Oakhill Street after they’ve saved enough money to build their dream home on it.  That testimony squashed King’s repeated, dementia-like claim that 1735 Elsinore Street is his permanent residence; and that whenever he is absent he intends to return to live with his mentally ill, hoarder, drug dealing brother and his girlfriend everyday.

Exactly two months before the May 23, 2023 hearing on his residency, Mayor Brandon L. King was cited on March 23, 2023 for illegal dumping at the property he claims is his residence with his mentally ill, hoarder brother.  The amount of debris at King’s residence is over 500 pounds, which makes his illegal dumping crime a felony pursuant to Section 527.17 of East Cleveland’s codified ordinances.  King’s illegal dumping crimes are being concealed by private attorney and chief prosecutor Willa Hemmons; and private attorney and assistant prosecutor Heather McCollough.  Instead of processing the illegal dumping complaint through Municipal Court Judge William Dawson, the two attorneys, Hemmons and McCollough, conspire to hide the mayor’s crimes in office.

In sticking with his tightly-scripted story, East Cleveland’s irascible mayor characterized himself as a weird and troubled man who, like his drug dealing hoarder brother, wrestles with his own mental issues.  The two main women in his life characterized East Cleveland’s mayor as an oddball pimp living off their financial support.

Norma King told the elections board she pays the property’s taxes for 1735 Elsinore after records show she quit-claimed it to Brandon and his brothers.  Mayor King’s wife said he pays no bills at the Euclid home she’s renting from his cousin, Brian Gresham.  She described King as a weekend husband and characterized their marital relationship as detached.  She doesn’t know if he keeps a toothbrush at the dual Euclid, Ohio residence where he sleeps 156 nights a year.  The mayor’s wife seemed unconcerned that a neighbor testified he hadn’t seen her husband residing at 1735 Elsinore Street since the mid-1980’s.  King created a video confessing how his wife paid to demolish 15612 Oakhill Road to build the dream-home only she appears to be funding.

The slum-like condition of the two East Cleveland properties under his business control show King, like a disrespectful, selfish and self-entitled brat, hasn’t taken care of the investments his parents worked to leave him and his brothers.  1735 Elsinore Street became a dumpsite around 2013 after King’s election to council; and his vote for the illegal dump George Michael Riley placed behind homes on Noble Road in 2014.  King has tenants at 13308 Euclid Avenue who are not happy with the office building’s growing deterioration.  What’s supposed to be a commercial office building is showing up as a residence for a registered voter whose signature appeared on a recall petition King circulated.

20230 Glen Russ Lane has been used as a residential address by Mayor Brandon King since 2004. It’s the address where his wife informed the Ohio Board of Nursing she relocated to in July 2021; and where she decided to register and vote right before the May 23, 2023 hearing at the BOE.  20230 Glen Russ Lane is Mayor King’s dual residence where he gets to play weekend husband to his weekend wife for 156 nights a year.

The evidence and his own testimony places Mayor King as a complicit resident of 1735 Elsinore Street in 2005 and 2010 when it was raided for drug trafficking and brother, Sheldon, was arrested.  According to the mayor, he was a resident in 2003 when his brother, Cecil, was busted for compelling prostitution.  On March 23, 2023, Mayor King was named by East Cleveland housing inspectors in a felony illegal dumping complaint along with brothers Sheldon, Norman and Cecil.  The mayor’s filthy domicile at 1735 Elsinore Street was also cited for excessive rubbish.  Mayor King’s criminal prosecution for the illegal dumping at his property has been obstructed by private attorneys and prosecutor impersonators Willa Hemmons and Heather McCollough.  They’ve refused to process the criminal complaint against their boss.

20230 Glen Russ Lane is an address King testified he began using 2004.  Records filed with the Ohio Secretary of State show King identifying 20230 Glen Russ Lane as his residence when he amended the name of one of his company’s in 2007.  Brandon L. King Ltd. was amended to AMS-05 American Merchandising Services, Inc. in December 2007.  It is one of the businesses King owns that he’s awarded no bid contracts to as mayor.

When Brandon L. King Ltd. was formed in 2004, King was a resident of Monticello Village apartments in Athens, Ohio.  King told the BOE he was a student in 2004, but records show him graduating from Ohio University in 2003.  He wants East Cleveland residents to believe he’s never lived in Athens 214 miles away; even as a student.

Under Ohio medical licensing laws, McCarroll-King had 30 days to report any change of address to the Ohio Board of Nursing whenever she moved.  King’s wife informed the Ohio Board of Nursing 20230 Glen Russ Lane was her new address on July 16, 2021.  The date was two months before her soon-to-be-husband’s name would appear on the September 14, 2021 Democratic Party primary ballot for East Cleveland mayor.  The mayor’s wife contradicted the July 16, 2021 relocation date with testimony to the BOE that she didn’t relocate to 20230 Glen Russ Lane until January 2022.

Prior to notifying the Ohio Board of Nursing she’d relocated to 20230 Glen Russ Lane in July 2021, McCarroll-King resided and voted from 3837 East Antisdale in South Euclid for 11 years.  County records show McCarroll-King and Mayor King signed a general warranty deed transferring ownership of 3837 East Antisdale to Bernard Fryshman and Rivka Gittel Lerman on February 27, 2022.

McCarroll-King had been a resident of Euclid on paper since July 2021 when she voted in the November 2022 federal general election from the address of the home she and her husband had sold Fryshman and Lerman on February 27, 2022.  The mayor’s weekend wife knew she was lying on voter change of address forms after she claimed to be a resident of 1735 Elsinore Street when she registered to vote there as a Euclid resident in December 2022.  If the King family dumpsite at 1735 Elsinore Street was her real residential address in December 2022, McCarroll-King had 30 days to inform the Ohio Board of Nursing.  She told her licensing board nothing about the East Cleveland address within 30 days.  McCarroll-King’s voting record had been clean until she connected her name to King’s in Euclid and East Cleveland.

King’s West Indian immigrant mother, Norma, sunk herself when she admitted to voting illegally 47 times from 1735 Elsinore Street in East Cleveland.  This was after she’d moved away in 1990 to 5156 Austen Lane in Richmond Heights.  She testified that Cecil, Jr. and Norman did not reside at 1735 Elsinore Street.

Mayor Brandon King’s mother, Norma King, admitted to voting 47 times in East Cleveland from 1735 Elsinore Street after she relocated to 5156 Austen Lane in Richmond Heights in 1990.

It violates federal and state election laws to register to vote at an address where the voter does not reside.  Voting from a false address in federal elections carries penalties of up to 5 years in prison and $5000 in fines.  Under Ohio law election falsification is a 5th degree felony that carries fines of up to $2500 and 6 to 12 months in prison.  King’s mother, wife and two brothers could face federal or state felony criminal charges for violating voter registration laws.  The risk of criminal prosecution made the representation they were supposed to receive from Tyler and Alexander more important.

When it was 82-year-old Norma King’s time to answer yes or no to living at 1735 Elsinore Street with 6 other adults, Tyler was nowhere to be found.  According to Tyler, he was co-counsel to Brandon King, Norma King, Norman King, Cecil King and Stephanie McCarroll-King.

Mayor King’s initial attorney, James Alexander, had already been called untruthful when he falsely claimed he was representing McCarroll-King.  Her attorneys advised the BOE on May 10, 2023 that she wasn’t being represented by anybody but them.  They confirmed it at the May 23, 2023 hearing when attorney Sheldon Starke sat with a partner on either side of McCarroll-King, instead of the mayor she intended to describe as a weekend husband.

Mayor Brandon L. King says he never lived in Athens, Ohio, even when he was a student at Ohio University 214 miles away in Athens. He graduated in 2003. In 2004 he informed the Ohio Secretary of State that he was residing at Unit 1, Apartment 102 in Monticello Village in Athens, Ohio. East Cleveland finance department employees and state auditors will recognize AMS-05 as American Merchandising Services, Inc. It is one of the companies King uses to receive no bid contracts.

Alexander stepped in at the last minute to help King’s mother and brothers, Norman and Cecil, and raised the same feeble defense Cuyahoga Court of Common Pleas Judge Timothy McCormick had already rejected.  Alexander had argued that the elections board didn’t schedule the hearing to challenge his clients’ voter registration within 10 days. He completely disregarded the board’s decision to honor his own request for an extension on May 10, 2023; and the hearing being rescheduled to May 23, 2023.  His defense was destroyed when Norma King admitted that neither she nor her sons, Norman and Cecil, Jr., were residents of 1735 Elsinore Street where they were registered to vote.

Tyler told this writer at city hall that he originally expected to be paid by East Cleveland taxpayers to represent ex-Councilman Nathaniel Martin and Mark McClain against four members of council: Juanita Gowdy, Patricia Blochowiak, Korean Stevenson and Lateek Shabazz.  Martin has confirmed that Tyler’s fees are not coming out of his pocket.  McClain declined Tyler’s representation and entered an appearance to represent himself.  How Tyler ended up personally representing Mayor King and his family, as an alleged city vendor, is a “slight of hand” mystery that should result in his name being referred to state and federal investigators.

During the hearing Tyler was coached by Hemmons to challenge the Clerk of Council who had filed the voter registration challenge against the five King family members.  In addition to usurping the Director of Law’s office by ignoring a January 26, 2023 resolution that vacated her contract, Hemmons conspired with Martin to usurp the Clerk of Council’s office to count the recall petitions he and King circulated against Gowdy, Blochowiak and Stevenson.  Martin called himself appointing Hemmons to discharge the Clerk of Council’s duties, and appointing McClain to the council, long after he was removed from the council presidency.

Between the front and rear of Mayor Brandon L. King’s residential home is far more than 500 pounds of junk and rubbish that makes the illegal dumping citation he received on March 23, 2023 a felony. The rear of the filthy residence King adamantly claims to live in, and intends to return to daily, is next door to the East Cleveland Public Library’s parking lot; and across the street from the entrance of the CEOGC Head Start Center. Parents and their children see King’s filth daily. King has been such a despicable neighbor to the neighborhood, his trifling residence was raided twice in 2005 and 2010 for drug trafficking near the Head Start school. The mentally ill brother the mayor claims he lives with daily was convicted of drug trafficking from their shared residence twice. Mayor King’s testimony is that he was a resident of the drug house during both raids. He admitted that pictures of his residence like this one are fairly current. King pretended that he crawled in and out of this death trap like one of the rodents that infest it.

The challenge to King’s voter registration came after I investigated and reported the election falsification at the King family household that Hemmons had ignored while she secretly impersonated the Clerk of Council.  After Council learned of Martin and Hemmons’ deception, I was later administered an Oath of Office by Council President Juanita Gowdy to discharge the duties of East Cleveland’s Clerk of Council on March 12, 2023.  When I reviewed the same petitions Hemmons reviewed, I identified numerous intentional flaws in her count.

When four members of King’s family were proven to have feloniously violated federal and state election laws, as I had alleged in my official capacity as Clerk of Council, Hemmons, if she were an ethical director of law and chief prosecuting attorney, should have used the evidence to file criminal charges against them.  She should not have attended the BOE hearing of King’s personal voting infractions; and coached Tyler on city time against another officer of the municipal corporation on how to help King avoid the same fate as his relatives.  Hemmons had called herself reviewing the same petitions I had reviewed and seen no discrepancy with the 7 adults at the King household at 1735 Elsinore Street.  The voter registrations of four of the five adults whose residencies I challenged at 1735 Elsinore Street were cancelled at the address.

Hemmons had lied to the BOE that she was too busy and had nothing to contribute as a witness.  The same information she had personally  submitted to the BOE, with her request to be removed as a witness, was used in Tyler’s closing statement on behalf of King. It was used by King in his rebuttal video where he inaccurately describes the BOE’s administrative hearing as a “court” hearing.

In his video explanation of the BOE’s voter registration hearing, King hides the BOE’s decision to cancel his mother and two brothers’ voter registrations at 1735 Elsinore Street.  He says nothing about his wife’s abrupt decision to abandon the lie that 1735 Elsinore Street was her residence for voting purposes.  He shows no pictures of the illegal dump he wants East Cleveland voters to believe is his residence at 1735 Elsinore Street.  He offers no explanation for the felony illegal dumping citation he received from inspectors under his supervision on March 23, 2023.  He shows no water bill, gas bill, electric bill, sewer bill, cable or internet bill.  Mayor King doesn’t even bother to show a view from the living room inside the household he’s sharing with his brother and his girlfriend.  He wants residents to simply accept everything he says as if it’s the gospel.

If Mayor King desperately wants East Cleveland residents to believe he lives in filth with his mentally ill, drug dealing, hoarder brother, and his brother’s girlfriend, according to their voter registration records, they should accept his characterization of himself.

Eric Jonathan Brewer

Cleveland's most influential journalist and East Cleveland's most successful mayor is an East Saint Louis, Illinois native whose father led the city's petition drive in 1969 to elect the first black mayor in 1971. Eric is an old-school investigative reporter whose 40-year body of editorial work has been demonstrably effective. No local journalist is feared or respected more.

Trained in newspaper publishing by the legendary Call & Post Publisher William Otis Walker in 1978 when it was the nation's 5th largest Black-owned publication, Eric has published and edited 13 local, regional and statewide publications across Ohio. Adding to his publishing and reporting resume is Eric's career in government. Eric served as the city's highest paid part-time Special Assistant to ex-Cleveland Mayor Michael R. White. He served as Chief of Staff to ex-East Cleveland Mayor Emmanuel Onunwor; and Chief of Communications to the late George James in his capacity as the Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority's first Black executive director. Eric was appointed to serve as a member of the state's Financial Planning & Supervision Commission to guide the East Cleveland school district out of fiscal emergency and $20 million deficit. Former U.S. HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson told Eric in his D.C. office he was the only mayor in the nation simultaneously-managing a municipal block grant program. Eric wrote the city's $2.2 million Neighborhood Stabilization Program grant application. A HUD Inspector General audit of his management of the block grant program resulted in "zero" audit findings.

As a newspaper publisher, Eric has used his insider's detailed knowledge of government and his publications to lead the FBI and state prosecutors to investigations that resulted in criminal prosecutions of well-known elected officials in Ohio; and have helped realign Cleveland's political landscape with the defeat of candidates and issues he's exposed. Eric's stories led to the indictments of the late Governor George Voinovich's brother, Paul Voinovich of the V Group, and four associates. He asked the FBI to investigate the mayor he'd served as chief of staff for public corruption; and testified in three federal trials for the prosecution. He forced former Cuyahoga County Coroner Dr. Elizabeth Balraj to admit her investigations of police killings were fraudulent; and to issue notices to local police that her investigators would control police killing investigations. Eric's current work has resulted in Cuyahoga County Judge John Russo accepting the criminal complaint he guided an activist to file against 24 civil rights-violating police officers in the city he once led for operating without valid peace officer credentials. USA Today reporters picked up on Eric's police credentials reporting from his social media page and made it national.

Eric is the author of of his first book, "Fight Police License Plate Spying," which examines the FBI and local police misuse of the National Crime Information Center criminal records history database. An accomplished trumpet player and singer whose friendship with Duke Fakir of the Four Tops resulted in his singing the show's closing song, "Can't Help Myself": Curtis Sliwa of New York's Guardian Angels counts Eric among his founding chapter leaders from the early 1980's role as an Ohio organizer of over 300 volunteer crime fighters in Cleveland, Columbus and Youngstown, Ohio. For his work as a young man Eric was recognized by Cleveland's Urban League as it's 1983 Young Man of the Year.

Known in Cleveland for his encyclopedic knowledge of government and history, and intimately-connected with the region's players, every local major media outlet in Cleveland has picked up on one of Eric's stories since 1979. There is no mainstream newspaper, television or radio outlet in Cleveland that does not include an interview with Eric Jonathan Brewer in its archives over the past 40 years.

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